Latest issue of the Operating Theatre Journal

Summary

A monthly journal for all operating theatre staff covering surgical and anaesthesia news.

Content

2024

February issue

• The post-anaesthetic care of a patient following impacted wisdom tooth extraction
• New Inquiry: NHS Leadership, Performance and Patient Safety
• Pensioner goes home within hours of having heart valve replacement surgery
• A student’s Reflection on an experience within the obstetrics theatre
• Multidisciplinary clinical hub at Cardiff Met offers new vision for healthcare delivery

January issue

• The change in practice of aortic procedures following the introduction of hybrid theatre in a tertiary centre.
• Evolving heart surgery education is crucial to equip surgeons with the skills to match the technology.
• A case study detailing the postoperative recovery of an elective patient.
• Why managing NHS waiting lists is about safety, not just numbers.
• Keeping an eye on bad behaviour in the operating theatre.
• Reducing oxygen levels for children in intensive care will save lives, new study shows.
• Navigating burnout in healthcare: A critical examination of operating theatre staff in the UK.

2023

December issue

• Royal Papworth patient is first recruit to new ‘blood powder’ heart surgery research trial.
• A simple guide to the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF).
• The post-anaesthesia care of an elective inguinal hernia repair patient.
• Surgical teams at Southmead Hospital carry out 24 robotic-assisted gynaecology procedures in two days.
• New deep learning challenge to estimate breast density from mammograms.
• Retained swabs following invasive procedures: Themes identified from a review of NHS serious incident reports.

November 2023

• Workplace ostracism is clearly associated with healthcare workers’ job satisfaction, stress and perceived health.
• London operating department practitioner advocacy pilot project.
• How to share decision-making about major surgery for people at high risk of complications.
• Proportion of people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities registering to donate on the NHS Organ Donor Register is on the rise
• Trends in cancer. The world’s first collection of brain metastasis living samples will help treat each patient with the most effective therapy for them.
• Children’s Surgery Magic

October 2023

• A reflection on my learning as an individual and as part of a team during my second-year anaesthetic placement.
• Region-wide AI deal to help tackle waiting lists across nine NHS trusts.
• North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Trust uses RealWear headsets for training.
• Patients treated sooner thanks to Joint Working to Improve Orthopaedic Care.
• “Embracing Sustainability in the Operating Theatre: The Shift to Reusable Scrub Caps”.

September issue

• Serious hazards of transfusion (SHOT) report warns of alarming increase in transfusion errors and harm to patients.
• Doctors cut waiting list for breast cancer surgery patients.
• Study reveals surgeons need to improve how they communicate with patients about new procedures.
• Professor Sir Terence Stephenson, "all NHS trusts must use barcodes to locate high-risk devices".
• Nurses’ intentions to quit increased during the pandemic despite their high resilience.

August issue

• Most common medical claims: How to avoid malpractice allegations.
• Report recommends packaging and labelling change to prevent implant ‘never event’.
• New guidance on safe injection practice in hospitals emphasises the importance of prefilled and labelled syringes in avoiding medication errors.
• Progress with the new hospital programme.
• Advancements in minimally invasive surgery: Techniques, instruments, and patient outcomes.

July issue

• NHS must accept accountability and learn from mistakes.
• Simulation based education in healthcare higher education: In what ways does it impact perceived clinical confidence, knowledge, and skills acquisition in student Operating Department Practitioners?
• Risk reduction in endo-tracheal tube fixation.
• Historic plan launched to move Wales towards zero deaths from bowel cancer.
• Taking higher-than-recommended doses of Vitamin D for five years reduced the risk of atrial fibrillation.
• As complications from cosmetic tourism rise, UK and Turkish plastic surgeons unite to issue consumer guidelines.
• New research highlights opportunities to improve care of patients having major surgery.

June issue

• How to THRIVE in the Operating Theatre
• Preoperative optimisation: The effect of prehabilitation interventions on the postoperative recovery of cancer patients undergoing colorectal surgery – Literature review and discussion based paper.
• Surgeons must tackle three global health challenges to save lives.
• “PERUSE before you Infuse”.
• Artificial Intelligence could speed up heart attack diagnosis,
• SurgiBox: Ukraine’s SurgiBox Project has been successfully demonstrating safe surgery to patients around the world

May issue

• Reducing mortality in emergency surgery: Focussing minds through a national clinical audit in the NHS.
• Majority of NHS trusts do not offer training to prevent sexual harassment, study finds.
• Handwashing during ‘normal times’ can reduce burden of respiratory disease.
• The Surgical Education Checklist as a tool to improve teaching within the operating theatre.

April issue

• NatSSIPs 2 Sequential Steps: The NatSSIPs Eight – Flowchart.
• Mobile operating theatre helping drive down waiting times in Yorkshire.
• Why hospitals and ICBs are seeking new intel to find hidden high-risk patients on waiting lists.

March issues

• NHS Scotland first in world to ‘clean up’ anaesthetic gases.
• New standards to Improve the safety of invasive procedures in the NHS.
• Researchers suggest novel cutpoints for diagnosing cardiac hypertrophy in adolescents and young adults.
• NHS patients targeted to reduce risks as they wait for hospital treatment.

February

• New standards to improve the safety of invasive procedures in the NHS.
• Delphi Study Round Three – A study across NHS England hospital trust operating theatres.
• Crash and burn(out) – Aviation-style safety checklist and confidential helpline for surgical community to prevent mental health crisis.
• A Wound Care Study: has the pandemic led to new and improved ways of working?
• HSIB investigation: Access to critical patient information at the bedside.
• Artificial intelligence, Patient safety and achieving the quintuple aim in anaesthesiology.

January

• Delphi Study Round Two – A study across NHS England hospital trust operating theatres.
• Intercollegiate green theatre checklist
• Local Interventions to support the recovery of elective surgery at the University College London Hospitals department of theatres & anaesthesia.

2022

December issue

• Delphi Study Round One – A study across NHS England Hospital Trust operating theatres.
• Managing NHS backlogs and waiting times in England.
• Steroid injections worsen knee arthritis, according to two new studies.
• First robotic hysterectomy completed in Wales.
• World’s first algae-based local anaesthetic another step closer to reality.
• How new bacterial species siscovered in Asian soil could help battle against antibiotic resistance

November issue

• New research calls for all health and care staff to be trained in AI
• Reducing noise in operating theatre improves children’s behaviour after surgery, study finds
• Brain tumour patient operated on awake while playing saxophone
• No difference between spinal versus general anaesthesia in patients having hip fracture surgery finds study

October issue

• Why are intra-operative surgical Never Events still occurring in NHS operating theatres?
• Radical rethink needed to improve safety in health and social care.
• World Anaesthesia Day 2022: History, significance, celebrations and theme.
• £4 million “space-age” operating theatre will help bring down eye surgery backlog.
• Two thirds of nurses choosing between food and fuel as cost of living bites and one in five turn to food banks.
• ‘An inspirational story’: Hartlepool cleaner changes career to become hospital nurse.

September issue

• Service evaluation of the current World Health Organisation’s Surgical Safety Checklist in spine surgery at the University Hospitals of Derby & Burton. Could this lead to a change in NHS Improvement?
• The Anaesthetic Gas Scavenging System Project.
• Cancelled operations could be prevented by an earlier anaemia test and time to prepare.
• The top 10 things experts need you to know about screening during Gynaecological Cancer Awareness Month September 2022
• £35.5m for New Friarage Hospital Operating Theatres.
• New robotic surgical system revolutionises patient care at UHCW.
• Insourcing: Giving NHS operating theatre teams a helping hand.
• Arterial stiffness raises blood pressure in adolescents via insulin resistance.
• Birmingham’s Public Health Chief is among sector leaders to receive university honours,